Your wounds are not your ‘faults’ …

This morning I woke up and as I was churning.. this insight emerged. And I posted it on fb..
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Some very dear friends are grappling with love and intimacy. And I see in them a reflection of how I struggle with the same. Or better put, the sense of a me that is separate is where the struggle resides.

I saw clearly – just now – that unless I can be utterly intimate with myself. Nakedly so. And see the rawness, the fears, the desires, the complete human-mess which lives in me.. there is a fat chance that I an be truly intimate with anyone. Being intimate is being real.

There is a honesty that is radical. A vulnerability that is total. That reveals the truth of there being no other. I wonder if I am willing to totally and irreversibly enter that. Its scary. But I have run away for far too long and its tiring. I pray that I get tired fast and rest for good.
In the only real resting place which cannot be known. Where I am no more.

And then I saw this.. posted my a very dear friend, Rhea..
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“LOSING SELF-IMPORTANCE

You take yourself too seriously. You are too damn important in your own mind. That must be changed ! You are so goddamn important that you feel justified to be annoyed with everything.

You’re so damn important that you can afford to leave if things don’t go your way. I suppose you think that shows you have character. That’s nonsense ! You’re weak, and conceited !
Self-importance is another thing that must be dropped, just like personal history. As long as you feel that you are the most important thing in the world you cannot really appreciate the world around you. You are like a horse with blinders, all you see is yourself apart from everything else.
It doesn’t matter what you say to a plant. You can just as well make up words; what’s important is the feeling of liking it, and treating it as an equal.
So, all in all, the plants and ourselves are even. Neither we nor they are more or less important. ”

-Don Juan.

And then this was the icing on the cake which came from a dear friend:
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Don’t hide your wounds, friend.
Let them into this last candlelight.
I won’t judge you. See, we are all broken.
There’s no shame in being wounded.
You have fought many battles.

Your wounds are not your ‘faults’.
Illumined, they are reminders of a deeper healing.
Illumined, they are invitations to the Unbroken.

I smell your wounds festering from denial.
Quick, tear off those bandages.
I will take you exactly as you are.

Right there at the heart of your wounds,
infinitely deeper than “enlightenment”,
a silent Hallelujah stirs to wake.

You are only a fucked up mess
compared to some second-hand image
of “perfection”.

-Jeff Foster

And I can see how life is weaving an incredible tapestry.
An intricate design.. simply to wake us from the dream!

And another dear wise friend added when he read this poem:

“..we are all in that mess Jeff Foster speaks off. Reality is messy. Not neat like stories. I wish there was a forward flow of narrative i could offer you because you have contributed so much to bring things to this poised moment. And yet what will happen will happen. “Is” beats the “ought” hands down. Always…”